Rocky Road

Yesterday we headed out of the hustle and bustle of London and to the quiet and quaintness of Rye.
We had booked this weekend to catch up with friends ages ago, and as they are also kiwis and keen to see more of what England has to offer, we decided a trip out of London was what was required.

And Rye didn’t disappoint. It had old cobbled streets, green English countryside, good pub food (actually fantastic pub food), antique shops and art galleries to wander around and a church tower to climb. It also helped that the sun shone the whole day as well.

Somehow we managed to strike it lucky and be there the week of the Rye Bay Scallop Festival. They were absolutely delicious! I haven’t had such fresh seafood in the UK.

Here’s a few pics from the day:

Listening to the talking telescope telling us about the history of the area.

Views from the top of the church tower. A typical English scene.

The church.

February 21st, 2010 | Category: London Life |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (1)

Usually it is Stocky’s domain to write about our trips to the snow. He did it last year and the year before. However, he has decided that the blog isn’t needed as we are no longer being tourists, we are just living our lives. But I know the fans would be dissapointed if we stopped (even if they don’t write comments!) so I take it as my duty to write something here! (And no, I am not being a martyr!)

Actually I think we can let the photos tell the story as there were the same ingredients as the last 2 years – snow, sun, raclette, chocolate mousse and red wine, fun, sleeps and deep heat.
This year, though, we had Stocky’s brother, Josesph, to share in the fun. The 2 boys took off for fun in the snow parks, and I continued to enjoy my time on the skis, slowly criss-crossing the mountain! This year we took the train there and back and as usual, enjoyed it as a mode of transport. It also meant we got to spend all 7 days on the slopes – talk about being tired today!

January 24th, 2010 | Category: Travel |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (3)

I am having fun trying out new recipes, and any that I fall in love with I have decided to put here on the blog, so I can access them easily whenever I want.

This is another Jamie Oliver creation and it is so fantastic. I halved the amounts for the two of us – and we were incredibly full (perhaps over-stuffed is a better word) after.

Steak, Guinness and Cheese Pie
Serves 4-6

• olive oil
• 3 medium red onions, peeled and chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
• 30g butter, plus extra for greasing
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 sticks of celery, trimmed and chopped
• 4 field mushrooms, peeled and sliced
• 1kg stewing beef, cut into 2cm cubes
• a few sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves picked and chopped
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 x 440ml can of Guinness
• 2 heaped tablespoons plain flour
• 100g freshly grated Cheddar cheese
• 500g best-quality ready-made all-butter puff pastry
• 1 large egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to 190ºC/375ºF/gas 5. In a large ovenproof pan, heat a glug of olive oil on a low heat. Add the onions and fry gently for about 10 minutes – try not to colour them too much. Turn the heat up, add the garlic, butter, carrots and celery and scatter in the mushrooms. Mix everything together before stirring in the beef, rosemary, a pinch of salt and a level teaspoon of pepper.

Fry fast for 3 or 4 minutes, then pour in the Guinness, stir in the flour (you can add water to cover, but I didn’t need to). Bring to a simmer, cover the pan with a lid and place in the preheated oven for about 1½ hours. Remove the pan from the oven and give the stew a stir. Put it back into the oven and continue to cook it for another hour, or until the meat is very tender and the stew is rich, dark and thick. If it’s still quite liquidy, place the pan on the hob and reduce until the sauce thickens. Remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly.

Cut about a third of the pastry off the block. Dust a clean work surface with flour and roll both pieces of pastry out evenly with a floured rolling pin to the thickness of a pound coin. Butter an appropriately sized pie dish, then line with the larger sheet, leaving the edges dangling over the side. Tip the stew into your lined dish and even it out before sprinkling over the cheese. Brush the edges of the pastry with a little beaten egg.

Cut the other rolled sheet of pastry to fit the top of the pie dish and criss-cross it lightly with a sharp knife. Place it over the top of the pie and fold the overhanging pastry on to the pastry lid to make it look nice and rustic. Brush the top with beaten egg, then bake the pie directly on the bottom of the oven for 45 minutes, until the pastry is cooked, puffed and golden.

January 4th, 2010 | Category: Recipes |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

For me, Christmas morning usually starts with fresh fruit and crossaints (it’s become a bit of a tradition in the Peel household).
However, this year we decided to spice it up a little! This year we started Christmas day with this fabulous Jamie Oliver recipe. So good with bacon, maple syrup and fresh fruit (or with lemon juice and sugar as Stocky had one).

3 large eggs
115g/4oz plain flour
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
140ml/5fl oz milk
a pinch of salt

First separate the eggs, putting the whites into one bowl and the yolks into another.
Add the flour, baking powder and milk to the yolks and mix to a smooth thick batter.
Whisk the whites with the salt until they form stiff peaks. Fold into the batter – it’s now ready to use.

Heat a good non-stick pan on a medium heat and then put in the batter and cook to perfection!

December 27th, 2009 | Category: Recipes |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

Some piccies from our four days in Valencia.
(Photos of the family to keep the family happy!)

November 20th, 2009 | Category: Travel |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (1)

When you think of Germany you think of beer.
When you think of Germany in October you think of Octoberfest (although for some reason Octoberfest is in September…)

Not being a huge beer lover (unless flavoured with fruitiness to make it sweet tasting, and then I like Belgian beers!) I was all for a trip to Germany that focused on the grape-enhanced alcohol not the hops-enhanced alcohol.

So to the Rhein it was!

Stocky and I were joined by a good friend (and work colleague of mine) – Tina. Although she is Canadian, her parents are both German, so her ability to speak German came in rather handy. But that wasn’t the only reason we invited her along (although we joked she was going to be our tour guide and translator!); we do enjoy her company!

We really have embraced the train travel idea, so we caught the Eurostar to Brussels and then swapped trains to one to Cologne. Only 5 hours in all, and well worth the extra cost.
We started with trip with pain o chocolat and champagne (talk about doing it in style!).

The champagne was a bottle that Tina and I got from our previous job, and had been saving it for a special occasion. This occasion seemed special-enough to us!

After dropping our bags off at the B&B we went off and wandered the streets. Our first stop was the cathedral which we wandered through, and then we also decided to take the huge hike and climb the tower.

To be honest there wasn’t a huge amount to see in Cologne, so after a small amount of walking we found a beer house to go to. (Yes, I don’t like beer, but the other 2 do!). The Colognites (yeah, I made that up!) seem to have the concept of beer houses down pat. There is one type of beer, served in small (200ml) glasses. The bartenders just spend the whole time filling up the glasses (on a cool carrier thing) and then as soon as you finish your beer (which doesn’t take long!), they take the empty glass away, give you a full one, and put a dash on a beer coaster to keep your tab in check.

Before getting too roaringly drunk we headed to a cute little restaurant for the best schnitzel of the trip (well according to Stocky anyway. He only ate schnitzel for each meal, and ranked them!).
We headed back to the B&B pretty early and retired for the night. That was definitely a feature of our holiday – big meals and early nights!

On the way back we stopped once again at the cathedral which looked quite forboding all lit up at night.

Inside there was a really serene feeling (I think it was because most of the tourists had gone) and I just had this sense that I needed to light a candle and remember my family, both those living and those passed on.

The next day we picked up the car and ventured out of the city. Tina took to the autobahns with ease and we were soon flying down the roads. However, it isn’t that fun if all you see are motorways, so we did venture onto the smaller roads pretty quickly, with Stocky in charge of navigation.

His first port of call (because anything with castle, church or cathedral is where we headed!) was Maria Laach Abbey. It was an interesting place next to a lake, and surrounded by fantastic trees in their autumn glory. Germany sure knows how to celebrate autumn. It was fantastic.

Then onto Burg Pyrmont, because, well it was a castle! It would have been so cool to stay there, but unfortunately there was a wedding on there that day, and they had booked all the rooms.

So we took to the motorways and headed to Bad Ems, a place a colleague of ours had recommended. It was a neat little spa town, but the place was DEAD! There were only 2 places open for dinner (well in our price range) and the one the B&B owner recommended was booked out!

However, it was a fantastic place to see in the morning mist, and I had heaps of fun taking photos.

We then headed to Burg Eltz, a castle that Tina had visited as a child, and one she held in great awe (the best castle she had ever been too….). It was a pretty cool castle and we had fun taking a look around.

The walk back to the car was pretty magical too.

We were going to head over to the Rhine to stay the night, but we found the Mosel valley so pretty, we changed our plans and drove down the Mosel Valley to Bernkastel-Kues. This was a rather touristy town, but full of Germans! When the B&B owner heard we were from NZ, we HAD to fill in her visitor book! (It gets very confusing to have to tell people that yes, we are from NZ, and Tina is from Canada but we both live in London!)
The town was surrounded by vineyards, and this is where we had our first try of Federweisser. It is a delightful drink, and one we had to purchase to bring home!

I think I enjoyed myself the most in Bernkastel-Kues. I enjoyed walking the streets, seeing the buildings that seemed to be just about falling over, and we found this great little pub where you felt just like a local! I like that kind of experience!

By this time it was Monday, and Stocky’s last day with us. We had to be near Frankfurt to drop him off at the airport for his flight that night, so we made our way across to the Rhein. We loved finding random ways to get to our destination. We caught wee little ferries a few times to cross the Rhein which all added to the feeling of adventure!

We stopped off at Rudesheim as Mum, Dad and Aunty Anne spent some time there a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it, so we had to check it out. We took the cable car to the top of the hill and loved the views.

We even tried to track down the same restaurant they ate in.

Mum, Dad – is this it????!!??

Before finding our place to sleep (Eltville em Rhein – a place I wouldn’t recommend!) we went to Kloster Eberbach for a little look around, and some purchasing of wine!

Without our chief navigator, Tina and I had to decide how to spend our last day, and try to find a place of interest within easy driving to Frankfurt, as we needed to drop the car off fairly early the following day.
Heidelberg was decided upon, and I am glad we went there as it was a great city. Yes, it was full of tourists (and this time American ones, not just the Germans!) but it is a student town and had a neat feel to it – especially in the old town where we stayed.

The lovely woman on the SatNav took us once again on a very small ferry (run on pulleys, not petrol powered!) which was just delightful.

Then it was back to Frankfurt, 10 times around the train station to find where we had to leave the rental car (which in the end was obvious, but we could just not SEE it!) and then back onto the train.
I must admit the train journey home is never as fun as the train journey to a destination, but I feel I have done my bit for the planet! (Well on this trip anyway. Off to Valencia next weekend and that time it will be flying!)

As always, more photos can be found here

November 8th, 2009 | Category: Travel |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

I must admit I wasn’t that excited about our long weekend in Amsterdam. Don’t get me wrong, I love to travel anytime, anyplace. But I guess my expectations were low.

Sex shows, prostitutes and drugs don’t feature highly on my things that a good holiday destination should have.
Great food, friendly people, pretty sourroundings and lots to see and experience do.
And perhaps this is why I fell in love with Amsterdam.

The canals were so pretty. The food fantastic (and especially the cheese – oh the cheese!). The people friendly. The houses stunning. The shops so quirky and cool.
We fell in love so hard we have even been speaking about moving there to live. At some point. (Our families breath a collective sigh of relief).

I think we really fell in love our B&B first, and then this just set us up for a weekend of happiness. We were greeted by a beautiful dog called Beethoven – a bearded collie, border collie cross. He was just adorable. After noticing the dog, we noticed the house. It was a 16th century canal house that had been kept intact – meaning it hadn’t been chopped up and turned into apartments. Floor to ceiling windows overlooking the canal. Beautiful features and fittings. You can see more photos here – but to be honest, I don’t think it does the place justice.

We arrived early evening, and our friends weren’t arriving till much later so we wandered the canals for a few hours. The sun went down, people turned on their lights but didn’t close their curtains; I was in heaven. So many amazing houses to look into. Such great spaces, so well fitted. Lamps and artwork and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. I was pretty much drooling. And when there wasn’t houses to drool over there were little boutique shops to peer into. The houses are all pretty old in the central city and I loved the fact that some of them were leaning one way or other, with windows sagging – it all added to its charm.

In our usual travel style, we stumbled across a neat looking restaurant just as we were getting hungry. When we walked in all we could hear was Dutch being spoken and we let out a smile. Away from the tourists once again! However as the evening progressed we heard more and more English, but the meal was so good (and pretty cheap) we weren’t heard to complain. And just as we were finishing up dessert the older Dutch couple next to us started chatting. They had travelled so much (you mention Vietnam, and they say they have been there yes, just 3 times!) and had heaps of great stories to tell. It topped off a great dinner experience (and the fact that they have been going to that restaurant for 25 years, and he used to teach the owner Economics in high school…)

We then met our friends at a local bar and met up with some locals and not so locals and chatted away until the wee hours (well wee for me – 1am!!). After a great sleep we came down to the dining room for a great breakfast. The sun was streaming through the windows. The canal was sparkling. The food was yummy.

Then we got on our walking shoes and walked. And walked. And walked. And ate fantastic apple cake. And walked some more. We saw markets and canals. More lovely houses. And just a few bicycles!

We stopped at various places along the way

but we walked a lot. Stocky’s old man hip flared up, so we went home to have a nap (for me) and reading of a book (for him) in the late afternoon. Our friends (Morgan and Eva) went out for a flash restaurant but we wandered the local streets and found a great place for a meal.

Then on Sunday it was a bit of wash, lather and repeat excercise. More walking. More enjoying. More food. And just a little bit of shopping!

Amsterdam. A great city. One I would recommend. And perhaps a home city for us one day!

October 1st, 2009 | Category: Travel |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

We promised ourselves a decent summer holiday this year, somewhere with plenty of sun, sea and good food.  With the end of summer looming, we settled on Greece as our destination, and have had 10 fantastic sun filled days – even I managed to get something resembling a tan!  Athens was the first stop on our trip, and we spent our first day on the ground seeing all the usual tourist sites, including the New Museum of the Acropolis, which is finally open, after many delays.  Our first “Old Stuff” was, however, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, and despite being only a group of 10 or so columns is in my mind one of the grander sites – the columns are just so huge, larger than those of the Parthenon I think.

We then meandered around past the Olympic Stadium (the one from the first modern olympics, not the 2004 one), around the bottom of and finally up to The Acropolis (of which we have a million pictures).  This was quite cool, though the Parthenon is covered in scaffolding and has a crane inside it.  And beside it.  They do quite well to hide this from a distance, I thought.  Some great views over the city, and down to the water at Pireaus.  My favourite part was probably the Agora, which had the more complete Temple of Hephaestus, and plenty of ruins – enough, really, that we’d seen our fill.

After this we headed to the port town of Pirreaus for the boat to Santorini, and to begin soaking up sun and soaking in the sea.  Traveller tip for the day is to take either Hellenic Seaways or (preferably) Aegean Speed Lines – we found Blue Star much less comfortable on the leg we did, but that may have just been because it was an inter-island ferry.  Also use Open Seas to plan your trip if you have internet access, it lists all the ferrys.

We hadn’t arranged anything ahead of time for the islands, which worked out fantastically in Santorini – we got very cheap accommodation near Perissa with a short walk to the beach, and a bar at the pool.  We spent most of our time here relaxing, either at the beach or at the pool.  It was nice to swim in the sea again, it had been over a year for us in Barcelona, and a year before that on the way over.  We did a day with a car, and hit the lovely Red Beach in the south, visited Fira and wandered the streets with a million tourists, then joined them for a meal in Oia to watch a spectacular sunset.

We spent another day relaxing on Santorini, before shipping out to Naxos, a significantly larger island in the centre of the Cyclades.  Again we didn’t bother arranging anything ahead – we simply walked into a tourist office and stated how much we were willing to pay, and got a fantastic apartment 2 minutes from the beach at Agios Prokopios.  Travelling at the end of the season is great!  We spent yet more time sitting by the beach/pool drinking and relaxing, and took a day out to drive (Thanks Sam!) through the mountainous centre of the island, stopping in a little town to wander the streets.  We drove through to Apollonas at the north of the island for some great (and in my case, expensive) seafood, followed by a swim in the charming little bay.  We also walked through the main town, which was pleasant enough, but the main attraction was definitely the ocean – it’s been long missed by all.

We returned to Athens for our last night in Greece, and went to a traditional Greek taverna in Thisio, one that specialised in Lamb Chops – you order by the Kilogram.  We had 1.5 Kg between us, which was perfect, all were stuffed by the end, and almost needed to be rolled home.  We sampled some of the local bars in Thisio, and found an area deviod of tourists, which was nice – strangely they were all at the glitzy bars at the other end of the street!

All in all it was a great trip, and I’m very glad that we had a chance to get some sun and sea to top off our northern summer – roll on winter now, for some snowboard and ski action in the alps!

We had a heap of fun with our new camera – over 400 we took I think! Some of them can be found here

September 20th, 2009 | Category: Travel |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

Yesterday Stocky and our landlord tackled the courtyard, which had quite a covering of moss and crap on it.

Before:

After:

Stocky hard at work:

I helped a bit, but my *very important* job was to man the water connection at the neighbours two up! This mainly involved lying on the grass in the sun, hearing Stocky and Lindsay work away at our place!

It is good to have our landlord in the same country as us for a little while. It means she is also going to paint the walls of the newly cleaned courtyard to make it all pretty! And we are also getting a new radiator in our lounge (and taking the old ones out) so hopefully it will be a warmer place to spend our winter months! (Although I don’t want to think about winter. I am quite happy with it staying summer for a bit longer thankyou very much!).

Stocky also had fun with the macro on our new camera. Here are some of the results:

Today we both cycled up to Hampstead Heath and took part in a running club and then cycled home. So we are quite happily lazing about the house, before heading to our neighbours for a BBQ later on.

August 9th, 2009 | Category: London Life, Photography |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment